Autopsy conducted on body of Ill. lottery winner

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Urooj Khan, 46, was about to collect lottery winnings when he died in July.

By Jason Keyser
Associated Press
January 19, 2013

CHICAGO — Authorities on Friday exhumed the body of a Chicago man who was poisoned with cyanide after winning the lottery and conducted an autopsy in the hopes that it will help solve the mystery surrounding his death.

The body of Urooj Khan was exhumed from a cemetery Friday morning and escorted by police to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Pathologists collected samples of hair, nails, and most major body organs, as well as contents of the stomach, medical examiner Stephen Cina said. Tests might determine whether Khan swallowed, inhaled, or was injected with the poison, Cina said.

Khan, 46, died in July as he was about to collect $425,000 in lottery winnings. His death initially was ruled a result of natural causes. But a relative whose identity remains a mystery asked for further tests that revealed in November that he had been poisoned.

Khan was given a religious burial and his body was not embalmed. The body was wrapped in a shroud and placed inside a wooden box with a Styrofoam lid that was inside a concrete vault. Cina said the body had not come into contact with soil from the grave.

‘‘The body was in a state of advanced decomposition, but we were able to identify the major organs and take samples of each of these for toxicological analysis,’’ Cina said.

Given the length of time Khan’s body was in the ground, Cina said it was not certain investigators would be able to determine exactly how he ingested the poison.

‘‘I can’t really predict how the results are going to turn out. Cyanide over the post mortem period actually can essentially evaporate and leave the tissues. So it is possible that cyanide that was in the tissues is no longer in the tissues after several months,’’ he told reporters during an afternoon news conference.